Creative Do-It-Yourself Ideas and Inspiration for Your House and Family. Currently making _______________.
We’ve gone through about 3 demo’s on this kitchen, so I think it’s time to share some design and lighten the mood! We have most of our selections made, not all of them, but the big ones. So here I’ll share what we know for design direction for the kitchen remodel.
The wall is gone! We demo’d the kitchen sometime between Christmas-New Year’s (It all blurred together) and now we are completely gutted. Take a look at some footage.
Whew, I get tired just watching that. It’s a pretty long video, but it was a much longer day I assure you. We were sore, tired and hungry by the end. It was a lot of fun tho – everyone loves to demo amiright? Here’s a slo-mo shot of Joe busting through the wall.
We started by taking out our old appliances. I was bracing myself to find extreme nastiness behind the fridge and stove, but honestly it was way less bad than expected.
Fridge and oven gone. Joe’s sister is getting the oven and I think an old neighbor is getting the fridge for their garage, so it’s nice our appliances get to have a second life. As much as possible, trying not to waste.
Joe looking happy to rip out the old cupboards. Upper cabinets are going to use in the garage so that’s another plus. I am a very dainty demo-er, I’m usually trying to salvage, just like Christmas wrapping paper while opening presents 🙂
We do have a pretty good junk pile going though for sheetrock, old sink and lowers – we should probably get a small dumpster… We were able to salvage a lot of 2×4’s too. Which is like gold right now.
Nobody wants our old dishwasher, I promise!
It actually broke just a day or two before demo!
And now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for. The Berlin wall is coming down!
The wall came down pretty well. I was tasked with hammering off all the tile backsplash first. Then we went to town with hammers and pry bars on the sheetrock.
Everything in here is double sheetrocked for whatever reason, so it was a bear to rip out not one, but two layers of everything.
And yes, we made certain it was not load bearing or structural in any way. There was some electrical running through the post, which you can see dangling down the middle of the room. (Breaker turned off).
The whole previous electrical situation was kind of a mess, but that’s a topic for another post. Can I just pause and say Wow, it looks more open already!
Goodbye old pantry! I will not miss getting smashed by a door anytime someone came in from the garage.
This was by far the toughest part to dismantle.
Here’s Joe rewiring everything.
A photo dump of some miscellaneous demo stuff:
We found this wedding invitation from 1981 behind our old cabinets! I hope they made it to the ceremony! I thought it was really cool we opened it on January 3rd 2022 and the wedding was for January 2nd.
Pro Tip: Make sure to turn off your furnace while demo’ing so sheetrock dust doesn’t clog up your vents. We are lucky to have a wood burning fireplace, so we’ve been chopping wood like crazy and keeping that stoked.
Our borrowed hot plate for making mac n’ cheese. Don’t judge! At least it’s Annie’s organic. 😅
And because we like to keep it extra real, here’s our dishes situation! In the laundry room sink, complete with ironing board as drying station. It’s honestly no big deal, I grew up without a dishwasher so it’s nothing for me. Really trying not to use paper and plastic, but understanding the occasional paper plate is OK given the circumstances. We will definitely appreciate new kitchen appliances that much more!
Speaking of, here’s our little temporary setup. The kitchenette is coming in handy! We have a mini fridge, toaster, pizazz pizza maker, microwave, crockpot and new this year – air fryer and instapot! (Please send your quick+easy recipes).
We also have this beverage station/coffee station. I also use my nutribullet quite a lot.
We’ve been eating meals at this table in the movie room.
That’s all for now! I think we’ll be ready to share the ceiling next. Then we need to finish electrical and new drywall.
-Leah & Joe
The secret is out! The kitchen remodel is underway. Well, not exactly. We plan to start early 2022, but we have some groundwork to lay between then and now. I’ll try to keep this update short and sweet, outlining our plans for the dream kitchen.
We really never went anywhere, just took a break from sharing updates. But we certainly didn’t take a break from house projects! Consider this our official commitment to share a weekly post, at least up to our current progress. If 2020 has taught me anything, it’s to not make commitments for the future, but this feels manageable and will be good accountability. 😉 This week we are sharing our basement kitchenette build.
Well here’s a blast from the past! A friend of ours who is house hunting stumbled upon this little property. Look familiar? Fun to see what they changed and what they left the same.
Unprocessed October is coming up! And that means a lot of time in the kitchen for me. To help make my life a little easier, I whipped out my recipe book. And to help make your life a little easier, I’m sharing my splash-proof laminated cookbook DIY idea.
If you do enough projects around the house, eventually you’ll want to invest in a workbench. It’s not only nice to have a work station, but also helps keep your tools and supplies organized so you’re always ready when a DIY project calls. If you’re caught in an old catch 22 and don’t yet have a workbench on which to build the workbench, never fear – you can probably build this thing on the floor and it shouldn’t take more than a few hours.
So here’s the dilemma. We have an eye sore of a floor in the kitchen. And that’s the next big room on our project bucket list. But the entire kitchen overhaul might not happen for awhile, so I’m hoping to paint the floor to make it work in the meantime. I have everything – the paint, stencil, rollers and sealer. But I’m completely torn between two paint options.
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. I’ve got a cute and simple no-bake treat idea that you can give to virtually anyone (yourself included)! Whether you’re celebrating Galentine’s Day, Single’s Awareness Day, going out with your sweetie, staying in or just want to shower your family and friends with love, there’s really no better excuse to make this.
Whether you’re snowed in for the weekend, or looking to make a last-minute gift idea, this simple craft is the perfect way to reuse those old corks you have at home. Not to mention a perfect excuse to pop open a new bottle of wine and get your craft on!